Adding Git Revision Information to Go Binaries

The ability to determine the Git revision from which a Go binary was built is a valuable asset for debugging and version tracking. By incorporating this information into the binary itself, engineers can easily identify the source code used to create a particular release.

Why Setting Version Numbers in Source is Insufficient

While it may seem intuitive to include the revision number bezpośrednio in, the varying nature of Git revisions renders this approach impractical. Every change to the codebase would alter the source code, essentially creating a moving target.

Building with Git Revision Embedded

A more effective solution involves utilizing the go build command's -ldflags option in combination with a specially crafted shell script. The following code snippet demonstrates how to achieve this:

VERSION=`git rev-parse --short HEAD`
go build -ldflags "-X main.version=$VERSION"  myfile.go

This script fetches the Git revision using git rev-parse --short HEAD and assigns it to the variable VERSION. Subsequently, the go build command is invoked with the -ldflags option to embed the main.version variable within the binary. The inclusion of main. is crucial as it indicates that the variable is defined within the main package of your Go program.

Accessing the Revision Information

Once the binary is built, you can access the Git revision information using the following command:

fmt.Println(version)

By executing this code, the Git revision that was embedded during the build process will be printed to the console. This allows you to easily track the version of code that generated the binary, aiding in debugging and version control.